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So I am going to make an attempt at writing my first Music Adventure blog hammered drunk on whiskey. If I do not write this tonight I can guarantee you I will not be writing much during the NAMM show for the next 4 days, it is going to be one crazy situation involving finding a place to park the mobile stage and not taking a shower, while trying to look professional enough to find some companies that want to help us out with Music Adventure II. Believe it or not the last 2 weeks has been the party, and now its time for the real reason why we came down, which is a party in itself.

I know I know, it is a really rough job we have, but believe me when I say that this is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life, above and beyond the original Music Adventure Tour. I can’t speak for everyone, but every day we play, it is such an uncertain feeling of what is going to happen, yet every time we make it through without police intervention, I am fed with more confidence. Last night was a perfect example, and we will get there in this update, but I am going to go in order, unfortunately starting with all of us lighting our junk on fire with everclear…

After we had such an awesome night in Hollywood with the drum off and The Rainbow, we decided to take the next day off and watch Dano light his balls on fire. Really one would think we should be playing every night around here but let me explain to everyone about the gas prices right now…..They are fucking BULLSHIT. We’re paying $3.49 a gallon right now for regular, and the mobile stage has ran on premium for the last 6 months. It cost $75 round trip to make a run through Hollywood…Sure beats the shit out of paying $500 to play at The Whisky, and we make way more contacts, but we still have a few weeks left, and the bank account is running dry. So we plan our attacks properly, and don’t mind taking a day off to edit videos and blog.

The next two days could be explained in 15 paragraphs, or one paragraph, and I will keep it to one simply because I don’t know how many people want to hear about balls on fire. The first night Dano got hammered and lit his balls on fire, then the next night 7 people at Shane’s house lit their balls on fire with everclear, Bekka our roadie then lit her pussy on fire and pissed while standing on the speaker, all while we played Elvis “Burnin Love” in the background, then Shane played a couple Eagles songs on the acoustic guitar. This all took place on the Music Adventure Stage and You Tube was nice enough to delete the videos, funny how 12 year old chicks can strip naked to Ja Rule, 12 year old boys can be molested by Catholic priests, but you can’t light your balls on fire and put it on the internet….It’s a fucked up world we live in.

It is really crazy that the show we decide to go to our friend is playing has about as many people at as a local hometown show, but the people there are: Lemmy, Rick Kosick, Masumi Max and Morat, among tens of other people that I know are in some sort of legendary band but I am horrible with faces and names. Let me tell you it is kind of hard talking to Rick Kosick about lighting your balls on fire…he created the Jackass series among other things.

Ultimately Los Angeles would be the perfect place for us to live, but neither one of us would want to live here, we just want to live in a mobile stage, it is actually really cool having Eugene, OR as our home. Who the fuck really wants to rage every major city in America then return to a major city, major cities are cool but they suck to live in…parking tickets, people everywhere all the time, everything is expensive, nowhere to even relax. Maybe this is just me being from a small town, but if I were taking a week off before the next tour, I would much be surrounded by 137,893 people than 13 million people….just sayin.

Here is where I would like to say a bunch of things on my mind and talk about how certain people are, all the “rockstars” that we run into. We hate “rockstars” and we will never be one of them, we are musicians, if you want to be a dick to me when I say “thank you for everything you have done for music,” then i hope your career starts going more downhill than it already is.

I used to call people out on their shit and actually had great success with it, but at this point we just kind of have to smile and act like everything is cool. If there is one person that I follow everyday that actually calls people out on their bullshit, it is Bob Lefsetz, and if you are not subscribed to his blog, you should be, because everything he says is legit and are what I believe to be the ideals of the new era of music. Bob also re-posted some information about the original Music Adventure this summer that ultimately got us on the Mayhem tour to begin with. In other words Bob has a lot of followers in the music industry because they obviously are scared of what he has to say, the entire fucking industry is currently being flushed down the toilet, you can forget about the classic ways that bands became well known bands, it is over, and everyone knows it.

Enough preaching for everyone, back to the story, we rolled onto La Brea Avenue for the initial drive by scope out for a drive by show in front of Crazy Girls. As we sit at a stoplight I say to Bekka “hey that is LA ink, Dano said he wanted us to play there, let’s do it after Crazy Girls because it is 2 blocks up on the same street”. Then we doubt ourselves for a minute like it isn’t LA Ink…Yeah that is LA Ink.

So up to Sunset we go, then make a left to turn around, I turned right on this street with a light, and it said no trucks over 6,000 lbs….fuck it! As I go down the apartment lined street with just enough room to squeeze the mobile stage through, 3 cars start heading down the street. I turn to Bekka and say “bigger vessel has the right of way, fuck them!” They all pulled in and made room, and good thing they did, because I wasn’t stopping!

Pulled out onto the next road right in front of someone driving really fast, they passed me by driving into opposing traffic, flipped me off, and honked….Like I care, I’m in a mobile stage…fuck you! The stoplight turning onto La Brea I ask Bekka, “You ready? I’m heading to the back, take a right and you know where it is from there, sit in front of Crazy Girls for one minute, then in front of LA Ink for one minute…Godspeed!”

I hopped in the back and turned on all my shit, then rolled up the door at Sunset and La Brea. It is truly crazy playing while driving down the street in one of the largest metro areas in America, somewhat breaking the law yet somewhat following the rules. We raged it for crazy girls and bunch of people came out asking for information, we told them we would be back and continued down the street. 2 blocks down the road to the front of LA Ink where we sat for about a minute. They were all really stoked and we caught them really off guard, right before closing a band shows up and plays a show….awesome!!

The restaurant next door had some patrons that were stoked, but I don’t think the owner was too stoked. After we parked and were walking up the street we saw him talking to the cops about what happened, but there is not much you can do when the door is closed and the generator is off, so FUCK YOU for being such a flatliner!

When we got up to Crazy Girls we walked up to the bouncer and talked to him about the driveby show, he was stoked on it, but still wanted $10 a person to get in the door. I told him to go get the guy that wanted the card so we can give him a card and roll out, because 3 people on tour in a mobile stage can not afford $30 to get into a show! When the guy came out, who was the manager, and asked us if we were coming in, we said fuck yeah we are, he stamped our wrists, and we were in. Who the fuck has ever been on that guest list before, the “yeah we just played out front in a mobile stage” guest list.

Went in to watch our friend Arthur’s band House of Broken Promises and they fucking threw down! The manager wanted us to play afterwords so we did, do you think we can ever tell someone else “no.” Pulled into a 7-11 parking lot to turn around and a police officer was sitting right in my path. I rolled by him all slow and saw him eyeballing me really hard and just sitting there, so I parked, went in and got Dano some cigarettes. By the time I came out he was just pulling out of the lot, so Bekka got behind the wheel and we rolled up to Crazy Girls again. We were able to play a full song, then I hopped out, parked again, went up to talk to people for a few, then rolled out to The Rainbow.

Up to pretty much one of our new home away from home, The Rainbow, for the final show of the night. We started playing with the door open somewhere around The Whisky, then stopped at The Rainbow. There were about 2 people standing outside and everything looked really dead. Then it fucking EXPLODED with people, cameras, beer, weed, cigarettes, fuck yeah’s, and fists in the air….It was EPIC!

We ran into our friend Kristin that we knew from Mayhem Tour and her friend was doing some reality TV show, they invited Bekka, our friend that is helping us out, to try out for some reality TV show. So we stayed on the side of the street in downtown Los Angeles so she could go in and try out in the morning. They did their thing and then we rolled up to Castaic for one of our final nights here. Jim Beam was only $22 for a half gallon so I grabbed a couple….Going to be a crazy night tonight, hence the reason I am writing this hammered drunk on whiskey. NAMM starts tomorrow, and I guarantee you the next 4 days are going to be filled with more stories than you can wave an empty bottle of whiskey at.

We played out front in the Moooooooooo stggggggggggg. Haha we end up with a lot of inside jokes, and we had a lot of people prank call us while we were building the mobile stage saying shit like how bad we suck and how stupid we are at how we decide to run our band. It has been this way with everything we have done, we gave our music away for free starting 5 years ago, played any show we could for free, took all the shit we could from all the bands around us about giving things away for free, now everyone gives their shit away for free. Just like we had a bunch of fucking dipshits that used to be our friends with our phone numbers calling and telling us how stupid we were for building a mobile stage….And who is making music history right now?

We knew what was going to happen when we built this mobile stage, we were going to either get arrested or make music history, either of which both of us were willing to accept. It sounds like a really confident thing saying you are making music history, but I believe fully in my heart that we are doing what every true musician wants to do, which is play music every day and every night in a mobile stage wherever we want. It is why I will never sell Music Adventure Stage I, it is going to be in the rock and roll hall of fame some day, there is not much doubt in my mind. Just like I will put this challenge on the table right now, I have never been one to make claims and say things that we are not, but WE ARE the HARDEST WORKING independent band in the world, and I would be honored if bands challenged us for this claim, we have played 273 shows in the last 180 days, what do you have on that?

We have proved in under a year that anything is possible if you have heart and determination. At first the mobile stage was a $10,000 project, if you can’t save up $10,000 over 5 years then you are obviously unable to manage your life. This mobile stage has no bells or whistles, just hours upon hours upon hours of determination, we would have made the wood ourselves if we could. For the last 2 weeks we have been eating expired cans of ravioli and top ramen, make the sacrifice, there is no money in music anymore, so if you are not in it for music, fuck off and stop ruining it for the real musicians!

I would have never thought I would be choosing between playing a Hellyeah show, a Soulfly show, and a totally unrelated drive by show all in the same night. We are on every show we decide to go to, it is that easy, no ticket sales, only gas money…Pretty fucking cool if you ask me. Do you mind buying a shirt for $8? Or whatever you have on you, we have gloves too! And socks, and bandanas, the mobile stage really likes gas, at this point we don’t have enough money to get home, but where is home, as far as I am concerned it is in the mobile stage, and there are 43 more gallons of diesel in the generator tank, meaning over 50 hours of playing is left, bring it on, I know everyone in Music Adventure 1 is ready for it!

Back to the whiskey, all in all I believe this blog came out really well considering I just ran into the wall and fell face down on the floor trying to find the bathroom. Shane pretty much left us the keys to his house and took off for the night…Not sure how good of an idea that was…

So the next day was kind of a lazy one, it’s Dano’s birthday tonight at midnight so lets get some beers and party! Everyone crawled out of the mobile hotel and we just kind of sat around and didn’t do much for the next few hours. I got all caught up on blogs and some of the videos, then we just kind of soaked in what happened the day before, the response on Sunset Blvd was incredible, we played The Roxy last night without having to sell any tickets, from the sidewalk, pretty epic.

I think the first beer of the day was cracked around 7:30PM, we went through an 18 pack in a little under 2 hours, then walked across the street to get more! Dano got drunk enough to light his balls on fire again with ever clear, or I should say Dano got drunk enough to dump ever clear on his balls and Shane lit them on fire. Sometime around 11PM Chris the woman stealer and his friend showed up, they were trying to get us to drive down to the bar and rage a mobile stage show…but no one was sober.

If you have ever played Grand Theft Auto, that is what driving the mobile stage around is like. You start off with 2 stars automatically because you are driving around in a shady looking vehicle, then once you open the door to play a show you have 3 stars, and by the time the show or song is finished and we drive away we are up to 5 stars! So even though knock on wood we have had great success in evading police intervention, I could only imagine what would happen getting a DUII in a mobile stage. I know I barely have insurance on it as it is, and if I or anyone behind the wheel got a DUII on my insurance, life would end for me, and I would probably put a bullet in my head. So after a couple hours of Shane trying to find a sober driver in Castaic at 11PM(which is impossible) , and me convincing everyone that it is just not worth it, the only thing left to do was to light Dano’s balls on fire again!

Everyone still wanted to go to the bar for some reason, even though the fridge was full of fucking beer. I had reached the end of my rope, 5 hours is good for me drinking beer, usually I pass out a lot sooner. I got a little shit for staying home, but I was fucking tired, and apparently so was Shane because after he got to the bar, he passed out…at the bar.

I woke up the next morning to a knock at the back door of the mobile stage. It was Shane asking me if I had seen his keys? Seeing as I passed out before anyone, I don’t know where anything is, I asked him if he was passed out face down on his office floor this morning, he said he passed out in his room, and that must have been Chris the Woman Stealer. Then Dano comes out of the house wondering where his cell phone and charger are. This scene is somewhat reminiscent of the movie “The Hangover”, only it didn’t last as long. Dano found his phone and charger in his bunk, and I am not sure where Shane found his keys, but they were probably in his pocket.

We were going to go play the Anaheim Supercross in the parking lot today but opted out because it would have been a 170 mile round trip, and after talking to Shane, the parking lot is kind of on lock down and they charge for parking so fuck going down there, well just go rage Slayer for Slayer at The Music Box. Also one of our friend Shane’s good friends passed away today, so he wasn’t going to the Supercross either.

Shane said his friend Damon was coming over, and Dano can always tell when people need cheered up, he is like Santa Clause for feelings. Shane walks in the door with kind of a down look on his face and Dano says “….would it make you feel better if I lit my balls on fire?” Shane says, yes! As soon as Damon gets here.

So this is the first time Dano is lighting his balls on fire sober. And words can not even explain the amount of worry in his eyes. I can tell he needs some more liquid courage to pull this off, pounding 2 or 3 Coors Lights is just not going to cut it, so I run out to the van and grab the last couple shots of Evan Williams whiskey so Dano can pour himself a strong drink. 30 minutes later Dano is dumping ever clear on his balls and Shane lights them on fire. Look I am sorry if all this balls lighting on fire is offending people, but these are uncensored stories from the road, how could I leave this shit out?

Dano put a smile on Damon and Shane’s face, then Damon took off and everyone started pounding beers. Our friend Jessica who was teching for Kerry King let us know the red carpet starts at 6:30 and doors are around the same time. Shane was still kind of bummed out so we thought a good way to cheer him up would be to come on today’s music adventure with us! It took a little bit of convincing, seeing as Shane has told us for the last 5 days that he is not drinking tonight, we are such a good influence!

This is only after Shane had walked in with 2 30 packs of Coors Light. So we set up the chairs in the back, fired up the generator, and gave Shane a first hand experience of what mobile stage driveby shows are all about. It was about a half hour drive down to Hollywood, we are really located in a perfect spot to attack Hollywood on a regular basis. We were going to have Bekka drive and do a drive by show, but Jessica let us know there is a loading zone out front so I make the executive decision to not do a drive by show and just park up front. By the time the door was opening and we were playing the intro riff to Reign In Blood there were 3 or 4 security guards waving their hands at us and saying “YOU CANT PARK YOUR CAR HERE, YOU HAVE TO LEAVE, YOU CANT PARK HERE, YOU CAN’T PARK YOUR CAR HERE!” Anyone seen “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”?

When I got up to the front a couple guards came up and said it was totally awesome what we were doing, but we have Rockstar stickers all over our vehicle, and this is a Monster event. Not only is this total fucking bullshit, because we are parked on the street, it inspired us to do the next thing we did, which was light Dano’s balls on fire…..haha no we did not do that. We decided to do a driveby show with Bekka behind the wheel, because we also heard through Jessica that Dave Lombardo said to keep playing.

We still do the one thing that has gotten us this far in mobile stage shows though, and that is if people from the venue or police say to stop, we stop, it is just the respectable thing we do. We are out here to have LAPD and every venue in this area on our side, so we respect what they say, maybe it’s not the most punk rock thing to do, but we have 3 more weeks down here, and we want to be able to do this again.

Around the block we go, time to play Slayer for Slayer, in the name of ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK! The door opens and Bekka drives us down the block, every single person standing outside was FUCKING STOKED! We were able to squeeze out all of Reign in Blood, and I still haven’t watched the video to see what the looks on the guards faces were like, but I am sure it was priceless. Bekka parked us then went out to hand fliers to everyone, it is so awesome having people helping you that are truly wanting to help you, not just along for the ride, she is always busting out the camera at the right time and this is by far the BEST video coverage we have ever had of The Music Adventure.

We hung out on the side of the street for about a half hour, put on our full Rockstar Energy Drink attire, and walked right in the back door of the venue. It was pretty funny seeing the obvious Monster Energy Drink representatives giving us the stink eye like we just pissed on their parade. And I don’t mind pissing on their parade, because telling us we can’t play because we have 3 Rockstar stickers on our truck is fucking BULLSHIT! I know if it were a Rockstar event and we pulled up with 3 Monster stickers on the side, as long as we were partying our balls off, everything would be cool. Its like they are pissed because they know their energy drink is expensive and fucking sucks, I mean what other reason would you stop a gorilla band playing a gorilla show for?

Shane was getting tired and needed food so we bounced out of the drum off. I really wouldn’t have minded watching the rest of it, but the van was parked half way in a red zone and I really get nervous about that thing disappearing, even though it is equipped with Lo Jack and all sorts of shit to find it, honestly if someone stole it, no matter who it was, by 8 in the morning the next day I would have their balls lit on fire with everclear, and no water in sight!

Dano and Bekka came out when the show was over, and we waited to get a hold of Jessica for the after party. She came out pounded a beer smoked a bowl and led us up to the after party in the attic. EVERYONE was at this party, and when I say everyone, I mean everyone, Phil Collins was here. I was meeting all sorts of band members from bands I fucking love, I’m not going to start listing off everyone we were talking to and sound like some sort of starstruck tourist, but the one that stood out is Dave Lombardo, the drummer of Slayer.

He told us to NEVER STOP PLAYING UNTIL THEY TAKE THE STICKS OUT OF YOUR HAND. I’ll tell you what, I can write all day about all this respect stuff to venues and police, but when Dave Lombardo is telling you this, you just kind of agree. Just like at 2:30 in the morning in North Carolina when you are drunk with Jason Bittner and he wants to play your mobile stage drum kit even after you have been shut down for noise, you just do it, until you get in trouble again.

Everyone at the party said they were going to the rainbow in a little while, so you can guess what we decided to do. 11 minutes West down Sunset blvd, switch with Bekka and hop in the back right up the road from The Whisky. We played a drive by show down Sunset Strip in front of The Whisky, then stopped in between The Roxy and The Rainbow and raged it for about a minute, EVERYONE came out of the bar and started filling up the driveway, with Dave Lombardo front and center, then drove up to the Key Club, finished the song, closed the door, and parked. Keep in mind the whole time we just did this Shane is passed out in my bed, with one of the speakers right next to his head.

One of the security guards from The Key Club came up to us and asked us why we have never played there. We told him were always down to play there, but we have to sell 50 tickets, and we live in Oregon. He was really stoked on what we were doing and gave all our info to the manager, which had absolutely no problem with what we were doing. At this point we now have The Roxy, The Rainbow, and The Key Club on our side, and I am sure The Whisky as well but we have not stopped in front of there yet, only drove by.

Ran into a lot of people in the block between The Key Club and The Rainbow that were really stoked on what we were doing, which warms our hearts every time someone shakes our hands and tells us what we are doing is fucking amazing. Again we are still just a couple stoners that smoked weed and decided to do the impossible, we are living a dream right now that we created by just doing the only thing we know how to do, rage our fucking balls off! And light them on fire.

Walked up to The Rainbow thinking of how we were going to avoid paying the $10 cover to get in, then it hit us. “Hey whatsup we just played in the mobile stage out front, are we able to get in?” Fuck yes! Come on in. We were only there for about a half hour, said whatsup and goodbye to everyone, smoked some weed, and headed back to Shane’s house.

“Shane wake up were home! Time to light your balls on fire.” Dano says. “I’m not lighting my balls on fire…..I’m not lighting my balls on fire!!!! I’m going to sleep”. As he walks to his room. I was out about another 30 minutes later after eating some Boyardee chili macaroni and 2 hash bowls I finished on my own. By now it was about 3 in the morning, the day was stressful as all hell, and all in all it was Dano’s best birthday ever!

Now it is the next day, were going to hang out here and drink some beer, our speaker comes in tomorrow in Pasadena, then the mobile stage will be at 100% volume, right now it is only at 75%, next stop….who knows? As Dano and I were sitting on the back porch smoking a bowl these two hawks started fighting in the tree above us, they fell to the ground in the neighbors yard, then one of them flew away, and we don’t know where the other one went. Could this be some sort of sign that can only be found if we eat a bunch of peyote and fry for days in the hills of Northern Los Angeles County? Dano thinks they were fighting because they heard he was going to light his balls on fire but he hasn’t yet today, conspiracy…..I think not.

And we had no idea what was waiting for us in Los Angeles. At this point the only thing we have planned is the NAMM show and some Hellyeah parking lot shows, but those are all next week. The first night we partied at Shane’s house and talked about going to the Willie Nelson show the next night in Agoura Hills. Kind of seemed crazy at the time but we are in a mobile stage and can play wherever we want. Then we saw an LA weekly and noticed that there is a show going on pretty much every night around here that we could rage it at. Started calling everyone up and figuring out the schedule, the possibilities are literally endless around here, and pretty much for the rest of the month of January, this is our new home.

Woke up the next morning and rid ourselves of the beer shits and partial hangovers. Smoked weed like we always do, pretty much all day. Left around 6 for The Canyon Club in Agoura Hills. When we arrived the buses pretty much were located where we had planned out with Google Earth…There is a lot more to playing a mobile stage show than just showing up and raging, timing has to be right, and you need to have a general idea of where you are parking. It is very difficult to drive a 30 foot vehicle into an area where thousands of people are congregating to watch a show, while having no knowledge whatsoever about the area.

So we had a meeting over a bowl of weed and figured we would park in the shopping center across the street, by Kinkos, because I needed to make some copies anyway. Once we parked. it looked like we were going to play pretty soon so I didn’t go to Kinko’s. Instead the security guard came over and told us we can’t park here if were going to the show, I told him we were meeting our friend at the Sushi place right there, he kind of gave me a weird look(because the sushi place was closed and Shane was a couple miles away at a different sushi place). He then told us we can’t video the 14 year old girls dancing in the dance place we were parked at……what? We were like dude, were not pedophiles, were from out of town, and were meeting our friend here. He said he was just doing his job, which he was, really really well, I mean he obviously found a group of 3 stoner pedophiles from Oregon!

Just when we think the bullshit is over, this 55 year old lady comes out of the dance class. She walks up to my window and tells me that we CANT video the little girls. At this point we were done doing our video commentary and the camera was not even there. I told her WE ARE NOT PEDOPHILES, we have no interest in looking at your underage girls in there, we are just parked here because we are meeting our friend. Trust me….there are missing children on the side of this thing, we want to find missing children, not harm children, chill out bitch. She gets all nice and acts like she understands, then goes inside, and slowly….closes…every…blind..in…there.

Then the security guard comes by again and fucks with us. Realizing we need to get the fuck out of there I move over to the other side of the parking lot and park under a tree. The guard comes over AGAIN and wants to know what the fuck is going on, I tell him again we are meeting our friend and he will be here soon, that is all I know, I’m sorry!

At this point were thinking it needs to be a driveby show, Bekka has never driven the U-haul, but is very confident in her driving abilities, so we figure to roll with it, it is only one left hand corner and a straight away. So just drive really really slow, and if you see people come out, stop for a little bit, then stop at the stop sign, I’ll climb in the front, and we’ll roll the fuck out of here. She did an AWESOME job driving too, stopped for pedestrians, you know, being really really safe, because that is the most important thing, oh and it means you can play a longer song.

Still we have no idea what Willie Nelson is going to think of The Athiarchists, this is what is so cool about The Music Adventure Stage, every day is an adventure and we can play for whoever the fuck we want to without even asking. We respect the venues and the people working at them. If someone in charge says to stop, we stop, and leave, that simple…..only that hasn’t happened yet, everywhere we go people are fucking STOKED. How could you not be stoked, you have two homeless people in a moving stage playing free music for you, giving you free shit, you can’t hate on that.

People walking down the sidewalk stopped and were like what the fuck is this? Then a roadie went over and beat on the door of Willie Nelson’s bus, he popped his head out and waved at us, we were playing the Soner Rock Song for him, with our green lights on and fog blasting out, it was perfect, everyone was stoked, Shane even made it there in time to see it, then we threw out some business cards, switched drivers, made a left hand turn where you can’t make left hand turn, then blew across a 10 lane divided highway that was right turn only to get on the freeway. Rallied straight to Arcadia for some Taco Lita.

We have been eating less on this tour than any other tour we have done. Just heating up microwave food everyday, ravioli, cup noodles, easy mac, Lunchables, whatever is really cheap and easy to make. So when it is time to go to either of the big 3: In and Out, Jimboys, or Taco Lita, we throw the fuck down like it is the last meal. We all went for 2 Jumbos, it was almost $40 with tax, but what was worse than the money tax, was the tax it lay on my intestines, just too much fiber for someone who’s been eating Lunchables every day. It was still worth it though, worth every painful moment.

So where do we go today? I guess Sunset Blvd, but not until after we sit on the side of the road for about an hour staring at the windshield figuring out where to go. We also decided we ARE going to play on the freeway during a traffic jam, but not like those motherfuckers that closed the freeway, we are going to entertain the people sitting in their cars in traffic…Quite the opposite of the “other guys”.

Endured the 45 minute drive down Santa Monica Blvd through about 300 stop lights up to Sunset, that is the only thing that sucks about the location of all the Sunset Strip venues, they are as far away from the freeway as you can possibly get, and driving a U-haul down rough narrow roads with people and lights fucking sucks! Got lucky and landed the 2 parking spots right in front of The Roxy, where there was some industry night thing going on with some fairly mellow, but really cool bands. Paid the meters and sat on the side of the road from 4PM to 9PM, a very boring stressful time it was. While we were out walking Dano picked up a handle of Jim Beam…Can’t wait until this stress is all over, and I can get wasted, there is nothing better than the feeling at the end of a Music Adventure day, words can’t explain.

I sat in the front seat like a fucking tweeker, just making sure no one was going to give us a parking ticket, or be pissed that we were blocking the entire Roxy sign and marquee. At 7:30 we went over to The Rainbow for a pizza, then right at 9 we walked over to the mobile stage, Bekka grabbed the camera and backed me up a little bit because I was boxed in, Dano fired up the generator and got drums ready, I crawled in the back, opened the door and we raged one song. I was BLOWN AWAY by everyone’s response, even the guards at the front door that I was most scared about were pumped! After we closed the door and I was up front getting ready to leave, Bekka comes to the window and says “they want you to play another song”, I said “who wants us to play another song, the people, or someone that works for the club”, she said “the guards up front said its cool, you can play until 9:45”. So the door opens back up and we rage a couple more songs…Pretty fucking ironic that 3 years ago we paid $500 to play at The Whisky and now we play an unannounced mobile stage show in front of The Roxy 50 people, the exact amount of tickets we had to sell for The Whisky, and they ask us to play one more song.

There was a TSOL/Youth Brigade show going on 100 feet up the road at The Key Club. There was no parking in front all night and for some reason when we pulled out all the cars were gone. I was already in the far left turn lane, and turning around would have been a bitch so I decided there was no way it would happen, feeling kind of bad all night that we could have raged it for 600 angry kids on the side of Sunset Blvd…..Well….I am glad we didn’t stop there because here is what was happening

All of this happened no more than 3 minutes after we pulled out of The Roxy, as I was heading down Santa Monica Blvd there were cops hauling ass up to Sunset, I thought nothing about it until my friend Chris sent me this link today. If we had played that riot it would have been legendary epic and amazing, but at the same time I am glad we didn’t at this time, not only would we have been shot with rubber bullets and tear gas, which I GLADLY would have taken in the name of punk rock, but thanks to the fuckers that closed down the freeway I am sure mobile stages have a bad name with the cops, and if they rolled up and saw a band playing a riot we would have been arrested for inciting a riot and banned from doing what we do in Hollywoood. So even though we missed out on some legendary shit, we need to do that when we are leaving LA, not right when we get here!

Trust me, there is sooooo much shit going on around here on a nightly basis, tomorrow we are playing the Anaheim Supercross and then playing Slayer for Slayer, plenty of opportunity for disaster to strike. I feel like I am flying a 3 passenger airplane 100 feet above the ground through a major city, or better yet Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi when he is flying through the Death Star at the end of the movie…..But I am stoned the whole time, we are all stoned the whole time, it’s, uhhhhhhhhhh…….FUCKING AWESOME! “Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin'”, were here to play music and show people that anything is possible if you have heart.

As we are on our way back up to our friend Shane’s house, he calls and says hes at this bar Pizza Wings n Things a few miles from his house, and that we should meet him there. As soon as we roll up, he says flip around and park right here, right in the middle of the road blocking in all the cars, it’s cool…this is Castaic!

We fucking BLEW UP Pizza Wings N Things, people were stoked, everyone came out as we raged 3 songs for them. Afterwords I climbed in the drivers seat to park and ended up puking for a few minutes. It was a really stressful day, I really need to calm the fuck down and not worry so much, but just when you stop doing that….THE SHIT HITS THE FAN! So I will continue to worry, tonight were going to let Hollywood calm down from the riot last night, tomorrow is going to be a crazy day, plus we will be returning to the very parking lot that we played our first parking lot show ever, Angels Stadium, it took a police helicopter and spotlight to stop us last time, lets see what happens now…PARTY. I say party because midnight tonight it is the start of Dano’s official birthday, even though it lasts for months at a time, his actual birth day lasts 24 hours and is bound to be fucking epic!

Done with blogs and on to videos, going to skip ahead and do the videos of yesterday first, Fantasy Factory, Roxy, Wings N Things, and the story of an empty bottle of Jim Beam, oh and how can I forget Dano dipping his balls in a glass of everclear last night for 6 Metal Mulisha shirts, then lighting them on fire later.

I almost forgot to write about the Jim Beam party last night at Shane’s, although in a time line of last night I did not last that long. I had 2 drinks Dano mixed partied for a few hours and passed the fuck out, I woke up a couple times once the sun was up and they were still trying to polish off the handle. You have nothing to worry about Dano, you’re like a piece of iron, your beard is safe.

So much has happened since we returned home from the Music Adventure, I really wanted to write about all of that before starting Music Adventure Part 2: California Adventure Tour, but we have been really busy, pretty much playing multiple shows every day since returning home. I think if we added up all the shows we have played around the city of Eugene in the mobile stage it would be more than the amount of days we were home. We were playing literally anywhere we wanted to, and also did things with it that did not involve performing music: while driving down the road, VIA wireless into venues from inside the mobile stage, blasting Christmas music all over town on Christmas, marriage proposal, football games, birthday parties, radio stations, parking lots, the list goes on. Ill come back and write about all that when we return home from this tour.

This is The California Music Adventure Tour, we are driving down to Los Angeles to do the same thing we have been doing around Eugene, OR for the last 3 months. We are going to play wherever we feel like playing, we are going to play everywhere we have always wanted to play, and we just felt that the Music Adventure Stage needed one last tour before getting retired to The Athiarchists Museum to make room for Music Adventure II in the U-haul hanger, which will be renamed to the Penske hanger.

Just like the last music adventure, we always put everything off until the last 3 days before we leave. We had 3 months to get ready, finish a CD, make merch, work on the van, save up money, and in the 3 days before we somehow accomplished all those things leaving fairly satisfied and prepared. Here is what we did on each of those days

DAY 1

wake up around 12PM, the crack of noon
go get weed
smoke weed
drive to U-haul hangar
smoke weed
stare at computer screen
smoke weed
talk to Dano about what we need to get ready
talk to Dano about where we should rage
eat
smoke weed
go out to hangar and look at uhaul
take a couple shots of whiskey
plug in work lights
smoke weed
find Eddie Grant on iTunes and start grooving
smoke weed to entire Eddie Grant CD
take a couple shots of whiskey
play Foosball
start duplicating CD’s on 10 disc duplicator
CD’s aren’t copying right for some reason, fuck with it for 2 hours
smoke weed
smoke more weed
CD’s are finally being duplicated properly
Burn new screens for patches because the current ones are backwards
smoke weed
play Foosball
Dano Writes “The Athiarchists A Verbal Lashing” on 400 CD’s
Aaron installs new merch shelf above drums in mobile stage
smoke the last of the weed
play Foosball
Time to head into town because were out of WEED
get weed
smoke weed
drop Dano off to PARTY
Aaron does the Aaron thing
Go to sleep 3AM

Day 2

Wake up around 10AM
Smoke weed
call Dano
take shower
call Dano
call Dano
smoke weed
wait 15 min for Dano to call back
Leave figuring Dano partied hard last night and will pick him up this afternoon
drive to U-haul hangar
smoke weed
start cleaning out U-haul
sit in U-haul staring at it for 30 minutes
smoke weed
Check oil in U-haul just to see where it’s at
take shot of whiskey
smoke weed
Bekka calls and her bus is 30 minutes away(Bekka is our friend from Tacoma helping us video and sell merch)
Pick up Bekka at bus station
go to fabric store for patch material
Dano texts and says hes awake and at the house
Dano calls and we decide to meet up after kinkos
go to home depot for heater and extention cords
go to Guitar Center for their last 2 sets of strings
go to Wal-mart for blank beanies and paperclips
go to Kinkos to pick up promo cards and make books for CD’s
take way longer at Kinkos than expected
go to house to pick up Dano
smoke weed
Bekka gives us some weed cookies
eat weed cookies
smoke weed
go to dollar store for gloves, scarves, and beanies
head back to U-haul hangar
smoke weed
play foosball
make CD’s
write on CD’s
smoke weed
Package CD’s
Screenprint beanies and gloves
smoke weed
smoke the last of the weed
head back into town to get more weed
smoke weed
head home
smoke weed
watch 40 minutes of “Fast Times at Ridgemount High”
smoke weed
Dano passes out
Aaron passes out
Bekka passes out in Athiarchist house by herself 3AM

Day 3

Wake up 11AM
drive to house to pick up Dano and Bekka
smoke weed
go to grocery store
drive to U-haul hangar
smoke weed
print CD’s
write on CD’s
package CD’s
find out on our own that dude canceled the new years show we were playing
get pissed
smoke weed
not pissed anymore
smoke weed
Decide we will just play all over Redding for new years
screen print beanies and gloves
hand Bekka gallon of Gallo Rossi wine and screen printing squeegee
move drums forward on mobile stage
install PlayStation 2 and TV in mobile stage
move fog machine
talk about really cool thing to do with fog machine
smoke weed
end up not doing anything cool with fog machine
Bekka comes out 2 hours later blackout drunk and a half gallon of wine is missing
smoke weed
Dano takes over the screen printing
Bekka searches for bottle of wine
load up mobile stage with merch and CD’s
Bekka is still searching for bottle of wine
Bottle of wine is on top of speaker, in plain view of Bekka
Aaron decides to hide bottle of wine just in case she finds it
clean the U-haul hangar
Realize it is 4AM and we have to leave by 10AM
smoke weed
Bekka passes out
stare at computer screen
Change leaving time to noon
Bekka wakes up, pukes, passes out again
smoke weed
Drive back to Eugene because I left my blanket and pillow at home
Return to U-haul hangar in record driving time to sleep for 3 hours
smoke weed
Go to sleep 7AM

Day 4

Wow I could really do this for every day, but I think that was the only way to recap what happened in those 3 days, everything pretty much parallels what happened when we were building this thing, it is how we operate, last minute and get shit done!

A hangover is no way to start off a tour….or is it? Dano stayed passed out in the back for most of the drive to Redding, Bekka was in the pasenger seat nursing a mean headache/hangover. Even hungover as fuck she was up before either of us cooking breakfast, and all the shit she printed blackout drunk came out better than any of the shit me and Dano did…you already have more points than Wassus!(sorry Wassus but remember the shirt you screen printed?)

Stopped by Medford Guitar Center for more strings and they don’t even carry them anymore…Fuck. Drove over the Siskious pass which I was a little worried about, because the weather had been bad, but it was clear and easy. Went to Wal-Mart in Redding first to stock up on microwave food and water. Heated up some left over microwave burritos from breakfast and headed over to Bombays.

I decided to pass out for a couple hours since it was only 9 and I was pretty fucking tired from the night before. 10 minutes after I go to my bed Dano calls and is saying we should go park in front of Johnny’s Cathouse(the bar across the street from Bombays). Johnny’s and Bombays do not get along, pretty much the owner of Johnny’s is a piece of shit and the owner of Bombays is fucking awesome. “let me take the guard off, I’ll fire up the generator and pull around”. I pull around and park in the spot Dano had blocked off for us, shut off the van, and crawled in the back. I was tuning up my guitar and waiting for Dano to get in because I thought we were playing. I hadn’t been there for 4 minutes and Dano calls me. “Hey Aaron don’t move or get out, there’s cops all around you”. I went over this quick subconscious checklist in my head

1. Am I drunk….no
2. Did I smoke weed in the last 30 minutes….no
3. I guess there is no number 3

Everything passed on my checklist to deal with cops, so I blasted out that back door, looked right at them and said…whatsup? They said “are you Aaron”, I say “yeah, nice to meet you!”. The owner of Johnny’s was standing right there, he looked me in the eyes and said “so do you get off on doing shit like this?”, I said “shit like what, running my generator in my house on the side of the road”, keep in mind the door has never opened and we have not played any music at all. They told me that it is illegal to operate a generator in your vehicle in the state of California. I argued that with “well what about motor homes, this is my home”. They said it is not a motor home, it is a commercial vehicle, and commercial vehicles can’t be parked on California ave in Redding. I told them it was not a commercial vehicle, and they said California rules are different and if I have a yellow license plate it is commercial…Better beware driving to California with yellow license plates, or at least Redding. The dumbfuck owner of Johnny’s then chimed in telling me to park it on top of the parking structure, I told him we can’t fit our van in that parking structure, let alone the mobile stage that is 11 feet 6 inches tall…you dumbfuck. I told them I would park behind Bombays, they then escorted me there, and continued to drive by every 5 minutes until we left at 5 in the morning the next day.

After all that bullshit, and pretty much figuring out we would not be playing a show anywhere tonight, pissed off and tired, I went to sleep. But not until drawing on the roof of my bunk for 3 hours about the Redding Police and Johnny’s Cathouse. I set Dano and Bekka off into the bar armed with a video camera and a good time, and I dont really know much about what hapened between this point and 10:00 in the morning, because the camera battery died, but I know at least for Dano it was something along the lines of the movie “The Hnagover”. I woke up at 5:30 to someone beating on the back door, “smokey joe, smokey joe, open up, I need a ride!” It was our good friend Matt from Bombays, still kind of half awake I tell him I can’t leave until everyone gets in the U-haul, he told me Bekka was in there, I checked and she was, but still no Dano. While I was calling Dano to see where he was I heard Matt say “half ounce of weed”, as soon as Dano answered I told him I was taking Matt home and staying at his house, which was cool, because Dano….was still partying!

Day 5

Got to Matt’s house, smoked weed, and passed out. Woke up around noon and started trying to locate Dano. Found out where Dano was at, he was on foot, attempting the 5 mile walk over to Matt’s house. Matt told me to take his car to go get him, then decided he would just go get them. Matt made us breakfast at 3:30PM and we headed out to Red Bluff. Dano was still passed out when we got there, so Bekka and I set up the merch and waited for the show to start. I woke Dano up 20 minutes before we were supposed to play, he ran down and started tearing his drums apart until I said “hey dude, were playing in the mobile stage, not inside”, he then hugged me and said “lets smoke some weed dude…I feel like Chucky Cheese”. We raged it for about a half hour, seeing as there were more bands and we were kind of outside, we didn’t want the cops to come and ruin everyone’s night. It was an awesome show, people were moshing like crazy in the complete darkness.

There was only one more band so the guy in charge asked us if we wanted to play again, fuck yeah well play again. We started this set off with a rave setting, playing like some deathmou5 or something like that. People were stoked, and bumping and grinding everywhere, then we went into about a 40 minute set. Red Bluff knows how to fucking rage, this was our first time here, we always play in Redding, only 30 minutes away.

We closed the door, loaded merch up, and headed back up to Redding. We had decided the night before to play Bombays inside tonight because no one got to see us mobile stage it yesterday, thanks to Johnny’s Cathouse and the Redding Police. Dano is a fucking trooper, hungover as fuck, after playing 2 shows, downs 4 drinks before unloading gear, loads gear, rages a fucking insane hour long set, has 3 shots of fireball with me during the set, loads his shit out to the U-haul…then all of a sudden, as he is standing on my guitar and bass cab in some sort of surfing position, he slips and eats fucking shit. I honestly thought he would have ripped his knee off, broken his ankle, or leg, he somehow just got a gnarly bruise and scrape on his upper back thigh, yeah up high enough so he has to show you his ass to show you the bruise, which he does daily. Dano drank a few more, we headed over to our friends house, smoked a bunch of weed, and passed out.

Day 6

This day started off with about 6 bowls of weed and hash. I was so fucking baked at Wal-Mart that I left all the shit I bought at the checkout and had to go back and get it. I walked around the food section for 20 minutes and only left with a bag of fritos and a 3 pack of Pringles. Drove an hour south to the casino in Corning, went in and gambled a little, Dano won some money like he always does, then we all kind of passed out. Woke up after a couple hours and Bekka was able to line us up a show at On The Y in Sacramento tomorrow, sweet! Went back to sleep, im still fucking stoned.

Day 7

Woke up around 10 and headed south to Sacramento. Decided the first stop would be Guitar Center to get sticks and strings. A friend of ours, Alan came by to check out the mobile stage. Took us over to Jimboys for lunch, one of our favorite places to go, thanks a lot man!! He hooked us up then headed out, well be by here on the way home and rage a show somewhere for you. We were having some generator troubles today, the battery is fucked up, probably dead and needs to be replaced, typical battery bullshit, they only make them to last for 6 months.

Headed over to On the Y and met up with our friend Grant that drove there from San Mateo to hang out. He hooked Dano up with this really awesome Muppet Animal that he got off EBAY. Took some shots of Evan Williams in the mobile stage to kill time and wake up. For a last minute show we were pretty surprised at the turnout, which was about 8 people minus the 15 at the bar, but by the time we were half way through our set everyone was having a great time. Then of course The Entertainment Crackers played, if you haven’t heard of them we will have some videos up of it soon! After The Entertainment Crackers, The Athiarchists raged another 3 or 4 songs, Bekka was doing an awesome job slanging the merch for us, it is really nice having someone to sell merch while we play, between the last few shows we have made enough money off merch to get the mobile stage to Los Angles. Southbound and down, well hit up all the other California areas on the way home, we need to get to Shane’s house…PARTY!

Pulled into a truck stop in Ripon, CA to pass out because it was really foggy, and Shane wasn’t going to be home until the next afternoon. It’s finally starting to warm up, I think we have officially left the arctic weather!

Allright I actually wrote all of this kind of as it happened, but just never had internet to upload it all. So at this point we are a few days into our Los Angeles Adventure, many many many crazy awesome unbelievable things have happened, I’ll get the update up as soon as possible!! Thank you everyone for reading our blog and supporting us, sorry it hasn’t been updated in awhile!!

Where the stage will be raging

The mobile stage is currently in and around Los Angeles, get ahold of us to come play for you wherever! It will be there until 4/25 and then will be spending the next 2 weeks heading north through California, email theathiarchists@gmail.com if you have a place for us to rage!

This summer The Athiarchists will be performing in the mobile stage underneath the Metal Mulisha jump show at the 2011 Rockstar Mayhem Festival